


It isn't all in my head

by interstellash



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: M/M, i jsut...love this movie a lot, sorry if they r ooc but i always do that i think lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 11:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12457320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellash/pseuds/interstellash
Summary: Eddie falls in love with Richie and he opens up about it to Beverly, who suggests he tells him. After struggling to find the way to do so, he does.(Or: the summer that changed Eddie and Richie).





	It isn't all in my head

‘I think I like him’  
  
‘Who?’  
  
‘Richie’  
  
He felt like he had been carrying this heavy backpack for several days and he had finally been able to slip it off his shoulders. He thought that she must have known, but she had forced the name out of his mouth, because that made it real.  
  
The passing seconds between the moment he had said his name and the one Bev opened her mouth to speak again were an eternity. His stomach hurt and his head was throbbing. It was like he was so aware of every piece of himself, he felt the nervousness everywhere. He had never been open about his feelings, and maybe that explained why he felt so ill. Not those feelings about fear and dread. Those had become easy to manifest. But good feelings like love – that was another story. His body was tired of keeping things inside.  
  
‘So – are you going to tell him?’  
  
The nervousness dissipated a bit more, even though his head still hurt, probably because of the tension.  
  
‘I don’t know if I should’  
  
He bit his lower lip, resting his head against the wall behind him. They were at Bill’s house. Mike’s birthday was in two days, and they were getting everything ready for the party.  
  
‘He’s your friend. He loves you. Even if it’s not like that… I think he will understand’ she said, holding one of the arms that was now covering his face so he would look at her. ‘I think you should tell him. It’s worse if you keep it all inside, you’ll suffer more if you do that’.  
  
Eddie nodded.  
  
‘I will… just, not so soon’.  
  
Bev nodded and wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders, pressing her forehead against his head. They stayed there for a while, until their friends came for them.

-  
Two days later, they gave Mike the surprise. They said they were going to hang-out in Bill’s basement and they had everything ready for when the boy walked in. He looked so happy. They gave him some presents: a slingshot and a leather jacket that was pretty worn out but they had managed to get it at a reasonable price. Mike didn’t seem to mind. Besides, they had baked a cake for him. He looked like he was having the time of his life. Eddie thought that he had felt like that lately, with the Losers. Not that he would tell them, he just understood why Mike was all smiles and laughter at the moment.  
Bill’s parents had brought a couch downstairs so they would be more comfortable. However, there was not enough room for all of them. Mike, being the birthday boy, had obviously a spot. Bill, Ben and Stan had been fast enough to throw themselves on the couch. And so had Eddie. He had been one of the luckiest, as he didn’t have to sit on the arms.  
  
Richie hit Eddie’s knee before sitting in front of him, ‘You bitch’, he had muttered.  
  
Eddie had just shrugged his shoulders with a smile  
  
They played E.T in Bill’s film projector.  
  
Eddie wasn’t paying much attention, as he had already seen it a couple of times before, and he was a bit creeped out by the alien, too. So he shot glances at the boy who was in front of him, with his back resting against his legs. He tilted forward a bit, the smell of his hair made him smile as his heartbeat quickened.  
  
He guided a hand towards his head and run his fingers through his hair gently. The other guy didn’t seem to mind, so he started running them through his scalp, waves of scent reached his nostrils. And the touch got a response from Richie, who fell into it and seemed to relax, more of his body weight against Eddie’s legs, his head resting against Eddie’s hands as he kept massaging him.  
  
His heart was going to explode. His nose was so close to his hair now, he had forgotten there was more people in the room. He liked this kid so much. He suddenly felt sad. He wondered how love could make someone feel like that.  
  
He moved forward and wrapped his arms around his neck, his head against Richie’s cheek.  
  
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.  
  
‘Yeah’ Eddie replied. He stayed like that.  
  
_I just need to hug you for a bit. My heart needs it._  
  
He felt one of the guy’s hand gently grabbing one of his arms, his thumb running over his skin. He couldn’t help the goosebumps. He knew it wasn’t cold in the basement, but he hoped Richie thought that was the reason why his skin did that.  
  
He didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. But he had found the affection his overly-protective mother had never given him in his friends. Sure, the reason why she protected him was because she loved him and didn’t want to see him getting hurt, but that didn’t mean she had given him a hug when he needed it, or help him calm down when he was crying because of something hurtful she had told him. She protected him against everything that was outside of the walls of their house, never inside. And if she was the one seeking affection,she had to give it to her, but when he needed it, she was never there.  
  
So the Losers where a source of safety and love for him. He found he was loved and could properly love his friends. Especially Richie, he felt a different kind of love for the guy he was hugging now.

-  
He felt quiet around him. It was like he couldn’t be himself, too scared to let his feelings be noticed by the other boy.  
  
He wrote about him. His heart poured into ink. His fingers were blue, his throat was dry, like he was trying not to think about what he could not fight.  
  
He thought about his hands. He felt warm when he did. He pictured his nails against his cheek, his mouth close to his ear, whispering things only he could hear.  
  
Sometimes he thought about his lips too, but only for brief periods of time, or the burning sensation in his stomach would eat him alive.  
  
His heart was paper and was hidden under his bed, he was hungry and couldn’t be fed.

-  
‘I’m just saying, you don’t need to like science fiction to think it’s really cool. Like, you’ve got Star Wars. It looks like it’s actually space! The real one! Light sabers and shit! A guy came up with all that!’  
  
‘Aren’t you the one who didn’t believe the Moon Landing was real?’  
  
Stan rolled his eyes.  
  
‘That has nothing to do with it. I like science. And I like science fiction. But I also know that if I have facts that refute an event, I reason and believe them’.  
  
‘I don’t like science fiction’ Ben said, furrowing his brows. ‘The aliens that you see in some movies… they creep me out’.  
  
‘Your mom creeps me out’ Richie said.  
  
Mike rolled his eyes.  
  
‘I think Stan is right. You can dislike science fiction but it is a great genre. Especially lately’ he shrugged.  
  
‘I think all the genres have their great years and their great movies. You talk like only this one has made something brilliant’ Bev said.  
  
‘Oh God, please, don’t start talking about Romantic movies’ Stan pleaded.  
  
‘I don’t like romantic movies’ Bev replied with an angry tone, as if the fact that she was a girl was enough to think she liked a genre that often belittled women and reduced them to their relationship with a man.  
  
‘I th-think she’s right. You c-can’t just p-put science f-fiction in a p-pedestal’  
  
‘Ugh, whatever’

  
They were at the quarry. They had jumped in the water and swam for a while, but now they were just lying in their towels as they got dry. Eddie wasn’t there with them. And everyone asked Stan, who was the one that lived the closest to him, but he didn’t know. He ended up showing up, however. And when asked, he said that he had felt a bit ill and wasn’t up to getting in the water with them, but he could be with them once they got out. Bev gave him a knowing look and he nodded. He didn’t feel alone.

-  
Eddie realized he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he found out he was in love with him. He just knew that he seemed much more everything. Like he had become bigger, and had occupied almost every corner of Eddie’s mind. He was aware that not telling him was only helping the infatuation grow, the fantasies in his head becoming more usual and intense. He had dreams of him, of them lying on the couch, of him hugging Richie from behind. He sometimes hang out with Bev and told her about these. She hadn’t asked again about when would he tell him, and he was glad.  
  
‘Did Bill told you?’ he asked.  
  
‘Not really. He kissed me’  
  
Eddies cheeks turned red.  
  
‘Do you think about kissing him?’ Bev asked.  
  
‘Sometimes’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders.  
  
He was used to talk about his romantic attraction towards Richie with her at this point.  
  
‘I think I’d tell him, though. I don’t think he’d want me to kiss him if he has no clue’  
  
‘I understand’  
  
They stayed in silence for a while, the full moon was starting to appear behind the trees in the mountains.  
  
‘Bill said Richie told him you seem different’  
  
‘Different?’  
  
‘Yeah, he says you barely talk to him, don’t laugh at his jokes. Thinks you’re ignoring him for some reason’  
  
‘What did Bill tell him?’ he would have found funny the fact that his friend was upset because he didn’t react to his jokes, but not at that moment.  
  
‘That he should talk to you’  
  
Eddie sighed. Maybe he shouldn’t have let this go on for so long. He bit his lower lip. His hands were a bit shaky.  
  
‘I’m telling him tonight’

-  
Bev had hugged him, told him that he could do it, that he was brave. He, however, felt like he was walking into the lion’s den. His hands shaking still, the cold of the night helped him relax a bit. There was a faint light wherever he looked, the sky painted with the full moon, not a star could be seen. He slowly felt that he could come clean.  
He softly knocked on his window. He had to wait five seconds, he counted them. Richie opened it, his hair a bit messy, a bit of drool on his chin. Eddie had hidden his mouth in the neck of his own sweater.  
  
‘Oh, it is you’ Richie asked, once he saw who it was. His eyes were still half-closed. Eddie felt a bit guilty. But it’d be over soon.  
  
‘Can you come out?’ I need to talk’ he asked softly. It was impossible that his parents heard them, but he was scared of it nonetheless. As if getting caught would mean they’d immediately knew what he was up to.  
  
A couple of minutes later he came out of his window and walked up to Eddie, who had distanced himself from his house, in case anyone in their family got up and accidentally saw them. It seemed pretty unlikely, but he wasn’t able to think rationally about it.  
  
Under the light of the moon, it seemed that the stars had fallen from the sky and lived now on Richie’s cheeks, his freckles so visible Eddie could have counted them.  
‘Hey’ Eddie said.  
  
‘Hey’ Richie answered, his eyes were more open now, but he still blinked a lot.  
  
Eddie had his hands in his pockets, and could barely look at the other boy’s face.  
  
‘You remember when we… Oh, I got you these. Sorry I woke you up’ he said, offering him a plastic bag full of liquorice. ‘You remember that we invented a language that was… pretty much tapping our pencils and there were a lot of variables and each number of taps and length was a letter’  
  
‘You’re being very specific about it, yet we used it like a couple of months ago for the last time’.  
  
Eddie swallowed thickly.  
  
‘We cheated in a lot of exams. I think I passed a lot of them thanks to you’ he smiled.  
  
‘You’re welcome. What’s wrong?’ Richie asked, frowning.  
  
Eddie lowered his gaze and walked up to him, not daring to look at him in the eye. He slowly reached out to hold one of his hands, he then turned them so that his was on top, losing the grasp. With his other hand, he began tapping on the back of Richie’s. He spelled his feelings out in this language that only four people spoke, and he felt each pattern so deeply, each sentence as well constructed as he could. He was writing his heart on the back of this boy’s hand, and it had to be loyal to the shape of the real one.  
  
A good thirty seconds went by. When Eddie was done, he let go of his hand, letting it fall gently to Richie’s side again.  
  
‘You like me?’  
  
There were no words he could reply with, so he tilted forward and kissed him, bumping his nose against the other guy’s.  
  
He felt Richie move backwards, but barely, his lips only loosing minimal contact with Eddie’s craving ones. Maybe he was kissing too hard, he had no experience. But after that, Richie did not pull back, and Eddie relaxed a bit, even though his heart was beating at the speed of light.  
  
When Richie finally pulled back, he fixed his glasses.  
  
‘I’d never thought of you like that’ he said after a couple of seconds.  
  
Eddie felt his legs shake, but they didn’t give out.  
  
‘I’ve felt like this for a while now. I just didn’t know how to tell you’  
  
‘It was original’ Richie answered, half smiling.  
  
Eddie didn’t know how to respond to that.  
  
‘So now, what?’ he ended up asking.  
  
‘I don’t know’  
  
‘I just kissed you. You should say something about it’ he said. He didn’t know how these things went, but he felt like he was getting barely anything back after the effort he’d made.  
  
‘I don’t know what to tell you about it. What should I say?’  
  
‘I – uh’ Eddie thought about it. ‘Do you think you could like me?’  
  
Richie frowned and looked at the ground. He shrugged.  
  
‘You’re my friend’  
  
‘Yeah, we both know that’ Eddie said.  
  
‘You asked and I answered’  
  
Eddie felt a knot in his throat.  
  
‘Okay’  
  
‘See? I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t know how to tell you’  
  
‘I’d prefer if you were honest and straightforward’ Eddie snapped.  
  
‘I’m – sorry’ Richie said, a bit taken aback.  
  
‘I gotta go’  
  
‘Okay. See you tomorrow?’  
  
‘Sure’  
  
‘Thanks for – ‘ Richie started, moving his hand with the bag of liquorice ‘these’ he said as he started walking backwards, toward his house.  
  
‘No problem’ Eddie answered.

-  
Eddie didn’t felt as sad, nor did he taste bitterness in his mouth, as he had anticipated when envisioning this precise outcome. He felt like he had been honest with himself, with Richie, and even if it wasn’t what he wanted, he had dared to speak his heart out. He was also glad that Richie had not made jokes about his crush, which likely would have crushed him. He thought about how people sometimes didn’t tell the truth because they were scared of the consequences. He was like that before, but he realized lying to himself was much scarier. He felt a mixture of sadness and happiness, so weird when he thought about it later, but not so bad at the moment. Richie was still Richie, and he was going to still be himself. He wouldn’t forget about those moments, when his friend held his face and offered reassurance when he thought that was the end. He had managed to make him feel safe when he was far from it. He had believe in what Richie told him. He had been the one his friend instinctively protected when something menacing came around. That was friendship and love, and Eddie could not forget that. He could not be heartbroken when his heart was being taken care of so well.

-  
Summer was going by, and the days were slowly getting shorter, and he was slowly getting more reluctant, each passing day, about going back to school. Summer still felt like summer and it smelled like summer but thinking about September getting closer made him want to freeze time and stay forever with his friends. If only. There were days when the scolding temperatures would force them to the quarry and they would spend the whole day there, having brought sandwiches and cherries and sweets. Eddie felt as if this was what he would think about when he remembered this summer. Sweet and sour. There was one specific day he remembered vividly. They were playing a game about guess the movie and Ben was obviously winning, Mike was second and then came everyone else, their movie knowledge not being as great. Eddie remembered shooting glances at Richie and his wet hair, his hands, his chest, his lips. Sometimes he did not know why he looked, it wasn’t like he couldn’t help it, but he found him beautiful and wanted to stare a bit longer each time. He remembered Bev playfully bumping his elbow with hers. She was aware of what had happened, but she had seen he was okay, even if it still hurt a bit, and so she teased him. This summer was for Eddie the summer he’d learned to love life and had loved Richie like he’d loved no one before. He remembered jumping in the water later and Richie swimming in his direction and starting tickling him underwater, the height difference and lack of speed making it difficult for Eddie to get away quickly enough. Things were the same even if they weren’t.

He remembered another day, when Richie had gotten a sunburnt and he could barely stand to be touched. He remembered Bill and Stan going after him, at first barely pressing their hands against his shoulders, but then being more aggressive, even if it wasn’t much. Richie laughed it off, but Eddie knew he wasn’t liking it, the small flinching of his friend being barely noticeable by everyone else, but not him. Eddie was his shield. ‘It’s alright, Ed’ Richie said, but what he was saying was ‘Thank you’, and Eddie heard him. He felt as though Richie didn’t want to look weak in front of his friends. But they all already knew there was vulnerability in all of them. Eddie didn’t understand why Richie couldn’t just say ‘stop’, but he could say it to them for him.

One day they were at the forest, it was late in the afternoon, their shirts all wet with sweat. The trees felt like silent witness of the intimacy of the anecdotes they shared, a blind, mute audience who provided some sort of cover from the hot summer weather. The shadow was their only refuge then.  
  
Nighttime came around. They sat with their backs against the trunks, or lying down on the ground, the grass acting as a poor mattress. Ben and Stan were the only ones who had opted for that option. They were probably cooler than the rest of them, if even in the slightest. The moon could barely make it through the leaves, their eyes shining by its influence. All of their senses heightened to compensate the lack of visibility.  
  
Eddie realized that he could hear the silence, at one point, when all of them went quiet, as unusual as it was. Those brief periods of time when nobody in the group said a thing. He wondered if it was an established convention, that silence had no place among friends. Silence was awkward and made one wonder what the other was thinking. Problem was, what you thought about when you went quiet would not be what you would say if you talked right then, because you didn’t stay silent long enough to let that thought become strong. Whatever you said would be an attempt to numb those noises struggling to come out of your mouth, to be freed from your mind. But this silence allowed so many of this almost-said things. Eddie felt that he was made out of those. Of ‘almosts’. Of ‘nearly’s’. He would get to be a collection of ‘wholes’ one day. He would get there. There was no rush.  
  
He got up, cleaned his trousers a bit, a question came from his right.  
  
‘Are you leaving?’  
  
For a moment Eddie thought he’d heard _‘Stay’._  
  
‘Yes, I’m sleepy’ he complained.  
  
‘Aw, okay, see you tomorrow’ the same voice replied.  
  
Eddie smiled at him, he hoped he could see it.  
  
He smiled back.  
  
They all said good-bye to him and he headed home.

-  
Two days later, they were at the meadow, playing football. Stan had become suddenly obsessed and wanted to try out for the football team the following year, so the rest were trying to help. Expect they weren’t. It was obviously Richie the one who did everything against the rules, or invented his owns. Poor Stan was the only one who was getting mad at him, the rest of them laughing at him launching the ball forwards as soon as he received it, or kicking it on his field’s direction. There was no mercy, not even for the only guy with glasses in the whole group, so as soon as Eddie saw it clearly, he tackled him, earning an ‘Ow!’ that barely made it out. He felt the tall grass against his face.  
  
‘Oh my God!’ he laughed, rolling around to face the sky, his hand on his stomach, a stab of pain where Richie had jabbed his elbow.  
  
‘Are you alright?’ Eddie asked, turning his face and using both of his hands to raise his upper half.  
  
‘You bitch!’ Richie yelled, tickling him, making Eddie twist his legs and use his arms to cover his tummy as best as he could.  
  
‘Stop! Stop!’ he chuckled, managing to get a hold of one of his wrists.  
  
Richie laughed too, using his free hand to tickle him on his weak spot, his neck.  
  
‘F-fuck! Richie, you d-dick!’ fortunately, the others came around to help.  
  
Well, Ben did, because the others were laughing at the mess the two of them had made.  
  
‘You’ll pay for this, Kaspbrak!’ Richie laughed, his cheeks red, his T-shirt full of patches of dirt, just like Eddie’s.  
  
Eddie smiled as Ben took him away, looking at the ground and trying to quiet down his loud heartbeat, bring his cheeks back to their usual color. 

-  
He dreamt that he touched his fingers. They were standing next to each other, Eddie looking at him, Richie looking elsewhere. He tentatively reached out and touched the tip of his fingers with his, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come, and venturing drawing the shape of his index one. For a moment, he felt like he was creating him, shaping his phalanx, adding mobility to his tendons, thinking _this is you. This is how you exist in my mind, but I think this is you outside too. There’s so much of you everywhere._ Richie must have heard him, or felt him, because he turned to look at him and then at their hands. Eddie was now reaching the back of his hand, his middle and ring finger were now running over his skin as well. He stopped at his wrist, curiously stroking the inner part of it, his middle finger going back down, feeling the palm of his hand. He hesitated when he felt him move his fingers, no, stretching them, as if allowing him to feel his soft skin completely, limitless.  
  
Richie closed them as soon as Eddie started turning his hand, a movement he hadn’t planned out, his hand at will manifesting its desire to be held. He heard a chuckle. He didn’t know if it was his or Richie’s. It felt like a memory.  
  
He turned again to look at him. Everything behind him was grey. He tried to move his free hand to his face, and saw the cast on his arm. Richie’s hair slightly longer than usual, but he felt the moment was happening, it was real. He felt Richie touching his hand, and he pressing his fingers gently to his face, a shadow of doubt had crossed his mind when he had seen his cast, as if the realness of everything else could be eclipsed by the fact that his arm wasn’t functional again. Past, present, and future converged in his unconscious.  
  
He kissed his neck, his smell so intense Eddie could have described it. Was he making it up? No, it had come back home with him after they had fought in the dirt that same day. That was real. This was real, too. Because this was him, Eddie knew it. He couldn’t have felt this much love for anybody else, not even a projection of his mind.  
  
_‘I know you have to go, but please, come back’_ Eddie pleaded, he didn’t hear his voice as if he was talking, but rather thinking, a thought so loud he wondered how Richie hadn’t flinched. There wasn’t grey around them anymore, but white, and the brightness was slowly increasing, as if someone was opening a curtain.  
  
Richie held his face, still holding his hand with his free one, and kissed his forehead. He felt the coldness of his glasses against the root of his hair, a bit of wetness from his saliva stayed in his forehead after he pulled back.

-  
‘We would all die scorched’ Mike stated.  
  
‘Th-that’s not t-true’ Bill replied.  
  
‘I think he’s right’ said Stan.  
  
‘Wow, thanks’  
  
‘Have you ever even done it before?’ Mike asked, a raised eyebrow.  
  
‘No, b-but’  
  
‘I knew it’  
  
‘That doesn’t mean I c-can’t’ he continued.  
  
They were talking about having a barbecue. Bill was the one who had brought up the idea, and also its only supporter.  
  
‘Okay, but I stay like 500 feet away, and if you all survive I’ll have some of it’ Stan said.  
  
‘Really?’ Mike asked.  
  
‘I’ll probably see Bill’s face in the news’ Eddie chuckled, and they all laughed except him.  
  
‘Whatever’ he muttered, and Eddie tried to squeeze his shoulder, but the other guy pushed him aside, which made them laugh again.  
  
It was just the four of them, Richie was coming by later, but Ben and Beverly said that they couldn’t hung-out today.  
  
‘We could just make some sandwiches’ Mike suggested.  
  
He knew that wasn’t enough for Bill and his desire to show how manly he was, and that’s what he had said it.  
  
Bill rolled his eyes, as if saying ‘I thought this was over, can’t we talk about something else?’ and Eddie could read it in them.  
  
‘Where are Ben and Bev?’ he asked, so Bill could show off that he was the only one between them who had at least part of the answer to the question. 

-

By the time they were back, it was late at night. At one point they parted directions, and Bill pushed Eddie’s shoulder a bit, as a reminder of what the guy had said before that had made all of them laugh, or maybe because he had realized what had done to fix it right after. Eddie wasn’t sure, but he tried to push him back, and he dodged him.  
  
When he got home, he closed the door behind him and sighed, touching his forehead as he closed his eyes. His mom was fast asleep so he went straight into his room and started undressing. He had already got into bed when he heard someone knocking on his window.  
  
He got up. He knew it probably was Richie. Could have been Bill, but he didn’t think he would come around after how they’d parted ways.  
  
Had something happened? Was that why he hadn’t been with the rest of the Losers since they’d met that afternoon?  
  
He got up and put a jacket on, tuned a lamp on, before opening the window, his big eyes clearly visible, his pupils becoming smaller now that there was some source of light.  
  
‘Can you come out?’ he asked, his breath was a bit shaky, and Eddie felt it on his face. Liquorice.  
  
‘Yeah’ he said, waiting for him to move so he could step out of his window.  
  
They walked in silence, Eddie not asking because he was wondering what happened, Richie not talking because, well, maybe he was struggling to find the way to say why was he there. Eddie hoped it wasn’t too serious, but he wouldn’t force the words, the issue, out of him. He knew it didn’t work like that.  
  
‘Are you okay?’ he ended up asking, and the other stopped walking, turning around to look at him.  
  
‘Yeah, I’m good. Are you?’  
  
‘Yeah’  
  
‘Do you still like me?’ he asked. Wow, that was straightforward.  
  
‘Yeah’ Eddie replied, as shocked as he was at the question, it didn’t reflect on his features. Honesty had taken over the surprise.  
  
‘Do you, really?’ he asked, his teeth could be seen, his lips had stretched, but he wasn’t smiling, it was disbelief drawn on his face.  
  
‘Yeah, I do. Why?’  
  
‘Because I don’t feel it. I have been trying to get close to you, and you do not like – ‘ he struggled to find the word.  
  
‘Reciprocate?’  
  
‘Yeah, you don’t do that’  
  
He never thought Richie accusing him of not loving him could destroy him more than Richie rejecting him, but there they were.  
  
‘I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable’ he almost whispered.  
  
Richie felt the shakiness of his voice like he had just been hit. For Eddie, it was his defense. The seeking of self-preservation before what seemed like a heartbreak. He felt like he was standing next to a precipice and each word Richie said pushed him to the edge.  
  
‘I’m sorry’ he immediately answered.  
  
Eddie breathed in, breathed out.  
  
‘I thought I would make things weird between us if I tried to be affectionate, that you would misread what I did and think, I don’t know, that I was acting like I was in love with you, because I know you didn’t want that, I knew you didn’t see me like that and you would feel like we were in different places and I didn’t want to feel like you were pushing me away so I just stepped back’ he ran out of air.  
  
‘I understand, Ed. And I miss you. I miss being close to you’ Richie said, his eyes bright, his hands closed in fists.  
  
‘Are you here because of what I think?’ Eddie asked like a plea, as if saying that he would much rather not fight over misjudgments right now, when they were being so honest. Richie saying he was hurt because he was not giving him the affection he craved, Eddie answering he felt the same he had for the past weeks.  
  
‘I am. I have not stopped thinking about you since you told me. I like you’ he confessed.  
  
Eddie smiled. It felt like he had been wearing shades for a while and suddenly someone had taken them off and he could see all the colors so vividly that he could cry because of the intensity and beauty of everything he’d been missing out on.  
  
He hugged him, burying his face into his chest. He felt his smell, and under it, the beat of his heart. _It was you, it was you, I knew it._ He almost cheered, squeezing him tightly.  
  
He felt him hugging back, his head almost on top of his, his nose in his hair.  
  
‘I’m sorry. I should have known’ Richie muttered, hugging Eddie’s neck.  
  
Eddie shook his head, he couldn’t form words at the moment, but he wanted to give him the reassurance that he needed. They were both knew to this, they were both confused. They had time to learn how to manage this. They could learn together.  
  
Eddie was the one who pulled back from the hug and kissed him. _You’ve changed me._ He opened his eyes to see Richie with his shut tightly, as if he was trying to grasp this moment as much as he could, make it his. It was already his, already theirs, and that made Eddie love him a bit more. It felt like dreaming him again.

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched this movie n loved it a lot... and this happened. and writing this meant a lot to me. i lov these kids tbh. hope u enjoy this!
> 
> (im spanish so pls forgive any mistakes)


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